Multi-Volumes

Thomas Cahill is the author of a multi-volume series, The Hinges of History. The series is better-known by its individual titles: How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, and most recently Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe. They are the first five volumes of seven that he expects to produce. In"The Peaceful Crusader," NY Times, 25 December, Cahill argues that there was an alternative to the Crusades of the late Middle Ages, as we remember them.

Eighteen months ago, we had a very lively discussion at Cliopatria about whatever happened to the Oxford History of the United States. First conceived almost fifty years ago by Richard Hofstadter and C. Vann Woodward, the Oxford History was to be a multi-volume series that would be the point of reference for the best of scholarship in American history. Only five of a projected eleven volumes have ever been published. Atlantic Monthly's literary editor, Bernard Schwartz, and, in"The Rejection Bin of History," Boston Globe, 24 December, Christopher Shea have taken up our question about what happened. Shea's account is replete with the names and the triumphs, hopes and frustrations of some of the most important American historians of the last three generations. The story is well worth reading. Thanks to Alfredo Perez at Political Theory Daily Review for the tip.